Android is one of the most popular mobile operating systems out there with over 3 billion active devices.
Its immense popularity can be credited to a few things such as Android devices are cheaper than iPhones, the UI is user-friendly, and it’s open-source which leads to third-party development. One of the features that most people and I wish Android had is the battery health feature.
With increased battery charging speeds, the lithium-ion batteries in current-gen Android devices degrade quickly. Without a battery health feature, it’s impossible to know when you might need a battery replacement. In this article, let’s look at how to check battery health on Android phones.
Check Battery Health on Android Phones
To know the battery health of Android, you can download an app from the Google Play Store called AccuBattery. If you’re new to Android, here’s how you can install the same.
1. Open the app drawer and tap on the Google Play Store app icon.
2. In the search bar, type AccuBattery and tap on the first app in the search results.
3. Now, tap on the Install button. After the app is installed, tap on the Open button.
Once you’re in, swipe through the intro pages. The app will now calibrate your Android phone’s battery, showing the manufacturer’s name and model. After that, you’ll arrive at the dashboard.
How Does AccuBattery Work?
You won’t know the phone’s battery health right away using AccuBattery, and that’s because you’ll need to charge the battery several times.
For AccuBattery to generate close to accurate results, you’ll need to complete at least ten to twenty charge cycles (one charge cycle = charging from 0-100%). Of course, the more the charge cycles, the more accurate the results would be.
AccuBattery measures the power added to the battery (mAh) and the charging level. This helps determine how much charge a battery can fit in, and that’s how a battery’s health percentage is calculated. Bear in mind that at first, these readings could be highly inaccurate due to the smaller sample size.
A value is plotted on the graph with Charged % and Estimated Capacity for each battery cycle or a charge session (don’t confuse this with one Charge Cycle). The current intake is continuously measured, and the estimated capacity is calculated with time.
Other Features in AccuBattery
The app also comes with truckloads of features. For instance, you can measure the charging and discharging rates and the temperature of the device.
You can also see the total percentage of battery charged in the last session and the amount of mAh absorbed by the battery.
AccuBattery will also show you Charging speed, the percentage charged per hour, the percentage charged while the screen is off and on, and the current charging speed if your charger is plugged in. In the end, you’ll be able to see the total design capacity and the estimated capacity (in mAh) of the battery, which is pretty cool.
There’s also a Discharging section that shows you the battery usage per app with great visuals. In the end, there’s an Average battery usage section which shows you the battery drain per hour (mAh) during Screen on, Screen off, Combined use, and the number of charging sessions in the last 7 days and the Full battery time estimates Screen on, off, and Combined use.
Is AccuBattery Accurate?
Now, all these features sound great on paper, but do they work accurately? The answer is yes! The app works well and is one of the fewer apps on the Play Store that shows you accurate readings. I tested it out on my Google Pixel 2 XL, and here are some of my observations.
- The number of battery sessions recorded is 38, with 1,920% charged for 51,035 mAh total. Pretty crazy numbers, right?
- Pixel 2 XL launched with a 3520 mAh battery. My unit is almost three and a half years old now with 76% battery health with an estimated capacity of 2658 mAh, which could be true. I wouldn’t have believed it if it showed 85%, which most other apps on the Play Store did.
- Sessions where the the percentage charged was below 20% are ignored as they display inaccurate results
- The app also shows battery wear cycles in the bar graph. Although the bars in my graph look pretty elongated, you should try diminishing them and reducing the battery wear count by removing the charger once the battery is 80% charged (The app triggers an alarm) and not letting it drop below 15%.
- There’s a History tab where you can see all the charge and discharge sessions with the amount of wear in the charging sessions and charging time.
I’ve been using AccuBattery for a couple of years on other Android phones too, and it has worked great. Now, I’m not saying the app is 100% accurate, but it works and shows believable results at the end of the day. All in all, it is a good app to measure battery percentage in Android.
But great features come at a great price, right? No. The app is completely free. Sure, the free version has ads and misses out on features like dark mode, but the ads are non-obtrusive. Still, if you want to appreciate the developers for the incredible amount of work that goes into maintaining this app, you can buy the Pro version for as low as $2. That said, here are some tips to know if your phone’s battery has reached its end of life.
How To Know If Your Phone’s Battery Is Bad?
1. The first and most common symptom is battery drain. If your phone’s battery drains like crazy when the phone is kept idle overnight without any apps running in the background, your battery is bad. It’s time to get it replaced.
2. Battery jumps would become more frequent. For starters, a battery jump is when your phone is at “x%” battery, and it automatically, all of a sudden, switches off
3. If your phone shuts down and only switches on and works when connected to power.
How To Check Battery Health In Android: Wrapping Up
So, that was how to check battery health in Android. If you’ve just unboxed your new device and plan to use it for a couple of years, download this app right away and start monitoring your battery health. This way, the battery health results will be very accurate, and you’ll know exactly when to get it replaced.
If you’re a Windows user and want to check battery health, make sure to check out our article about the same. What do you think of AccuBattery? Have you used it before? Share your feedback in the comments section below.
